Friday, January 22, 2010

Super Friends! Super Fans!

Every now and then I do a cover for the Super Friends book that just makes me really happy that I draw pictures for a living. This one, the cover to issue #24, is one of those covers. Everything came out exactly how I pictured it in my brain. Trust me that is not always the case. Sometimes it's a real struggle to get the image on the board to match the "perfect" picture I've got on the drawing board in my imagination.This is the cover that marks my two years of work on the Super Friends so I did try just that little bit harder to get it right. Not that I shirk duties on my other covers, mind you :)Here are the two rough sketches I gave my editor, the incredible Rachel Gluckstern. We both liked the first one so off I went! I love how the Super Friends are barely even on the cover of their own book!

Speaking of covers -- reviews are in on a few of my past covers. Read 'em all just below this!The cover for Super Friends #21 - and here is the review from my favourite comic book reviewer and a big fan of my work:"Cover Art - 2: A bit of a rush job this time round. I get the 'storybook theme' but the cover is nothing like the interior and thus it is marked low. I get the feeling this was done before the story..."

I wouldn't ordinarily bother, but I do want to say that Stewart McKenny did an absolutely gorgeous job on the interiors. I knew, after reading the script, that he wasn't going to get the chance to draw a literal fairy tale version of the Super Friends. I took the opportunity on the cover to draw Superman as a literal Man of STEEL (or tin if you want to get all nit-picky ;), Batman as a Dark KNIGHT, Wonder Woman as Amazon PRINCESS, Green Lantern as a man of LIGHT, Aquaman KING of the Sea, and Flash as Hermes God of SPEED!Hence the difference between cover and interiors.

In all fairness, the same reviewer gave my Holiday cover the following rating: "Cover Art - 4: A Green Lantern powered sled, Superman as Santa, what's not to love!"

Super Friends #23 : "Cover Art - 3: Loved Wonder Woman's awe of space depicted here, but the whole 'Mystery In Space' theme they have going just isn't magnified well enough here. John looks like a robot by the by."